


E.X.Y.

by pastelheart



Series: E.X.Y. Drabbles [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, One Shot, hopefully, i will eventually make this into a series of one shots, in which neil josten is stupid, starts at the beginning of the first book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9295220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelheart/pseuds/pastelheart
Summary: E.X.Y. or Educated (E)xemplary Youth was started to help troubled young people stay in school while doing something they enjoy e.i. music, art, athletics, etc., created by Tetsuji Moriyama and Abby Winfield and the start was funded by the Moriyamas. The music program is where the story takes place. The music program builds bands in schools and bands compete in a “Battle-of-the-Bands” style competitions, winner moves on and loser is kicked out of the brackets. This goes on until the nationals and the winner there... wins. Prizes includes but not limited to (for college level only), year long record label (where most bands drop a professional album) and bragging rights.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! What up everyone?  
> So I've been thinking about this AU for a while (and wrote this a while ago too...), but I'm finally posting it!!  
> Enjoy my first official fic! 
> 
> Also everything is owned by Nora Sakavic, I own nothing.

Neil Josten was pretty fucking tired. However, he didn’t want to go back home because frankly home was a foreclosed house he illegally broke into that or sometimes the stage prep room. So he sat on the stage looking over the lawn in the stage lights thinking about the night, about the Band Battle his band loss at earlier, and letting his cigarette burn. 

He only wanted the cig for the smoke, for the memory of his mom. As he breathed in, the sickening memory came back. It felt like tiny fireworks on his skin and his nostrils to his fingertips. It was electrifying. It was enough to stay here even with the smoke being taken away by the gentle wind to the far end of the grass, until it was too far to see. He wondered if is mom was watching him. He prayed not for his sanity and for his time in the afterlife. 

The left stage door opened and Neil was brought back to reality. He held to his duffel bag tighter as his music teacher and agent, Mr. Hernandez came on stage. 

“Your family didn’t come tonight,” Hernandez said.

“They’re working. Out of town, New York I think,” Neil said.

“Still or again?”

Neil could respond, neither, but didn’t. Everyone at school had heard the same excuses enough to not even ask, but it was beginning to be overused and yet it was still easy to do so. And this is also why he spent his nights in foreclosed houses and prep rooms and because Millport was a wasteland of a town so there were plenty of options in his market of choice. He tried to stay discreet anyway to avoid the hard questions. 

Hernandez held out a hand while Neil stubbed his cigarette to take the offer. They turned toward the prep rooms when Hernandez said, “I wasn’t expecting what happened tonight.”

“No one was,” Neil said bluntly, turning towards the lawn. 

Their loss tonight kicked them from the chance at state championship finals, just a few battles away. Close, but not close enough. Neil longed for it, but battles won’t start back until fall and he’ll graduate before then. Music had been a part of him since he can remember.

“I’ll tell them how we did,” Neil said when he caught Hernandez watching him.

“Well that can wait,” he said, “there is someone here to talk to you.”

That sounded like hell to someone like Neil. He’d spent so much time on the run that the thought kept him from walking for a second, but he just clung to his bag. He looked for a quick escape. But it was too late, a large man came into view opening and blocking the prep room doors in front of them. The tribal tattoos and a wife beater would have worried him alone, but the man held a file in his hand. He looked casual, with a serious look in his eyes. He wasn’t from Millport, that was very apparent because there were less than nine hundred people living in the town. He thought this would hide him, but he gravely was mistaken.

“He’s from a university,” Hernandez said, “he came to see you play.”

“I don’t beleive you,” Neil said. “No one even know where we are, let alone come find us to do some recruiting.”

“There’s this thing called a map,” the strange man said. “It’s a pretty new thing, don’t know if you know of it.”

“I sent him your file Neil. I sent him here because his keyboardist is struggling and they need a synthesiser, and I thought ‘why not?’. And I didn’t tell you because, well, I wasn’t sure if anything was going to turn up.”

“What?” Neil stared up at him.

“We tried to get a hold of your parents, but no avail. So we waited for tonight because you said they may have come.”

“Well I’m not going to wait for them if they don’t show,” the man said, “so, I was told you haven’t chosen a school for fall and my original recruit had… we had to let go. Works out, doesn’t it? All you need to do is sign a line and congrats, you’re with me for five years.”

“This can be real…” Neil trailed. 

“Afraid so,” the man said, turning the file showing “Neil” in big on the front. Neil thought about snatching it and running through it. However, he’d be graduating in a few weeks and then in some far away place after that. It was clear he’d stayed too long.

Being on the run for eight years, creating enough lies to make your head spin and never leave a trail. Plenty of lies of sorts kept him from the truth, but he knew that signing with a college would lead himself in his own grave. He would be worse than idle, he would be in spotlight if he signed. Prison wouldn’t keep his dad at bay forever, and Neil knew he wouldn’t live to tell about that.

It should have been obvious, but it was to a golden future. Something he had only dreamt of. Something he’d had a taste of, but never thought would have more of. He yearned for it, and it physically hurt. He wished he didn’t play for the Millport, Marching Dingos for a split second. Hated himself for a split second. He knew his mother hated him, if she were with him, if she would have allowed him. He promised her, yet here he was going against everything she taught him. She warned him and for some reason it only barely struck him. He wanted this, it is the only thing left. He didn’t know if he could walk away right now. 

“Go, please,” he tried.

“I’m going to need an answer tonight. It’s really late in the season after all and The Committee is out for something since Janie got put away.”

Neil felt his stomach drop, or maybe that was his heart. But either way the name was too familiar. He snapped to look between his file and the now known agent’s face. “The foxes,” he said dumbly, “fox. by Palmetto State University.”

Mr. Wymack - the previously unknown man - looked shocked. He hadn’t expected Neil to put it together that quickly. “I guess you watch the news.”

 

Wymack could say that again. Janie Smalls was the recruit they had wanted, but attempted suicide. He friend found her, got her to the hospital in time. She’s now under suicide watch. Just like a Fox, the news man had said, and it wasn’t an exaggeration.

The Palmetto State University band fox. was a band completely comprised of talent and rejection and drugs and alcohol. Their agent, Wymack, only recruited musicians from broken homes, making the band more of a halfway house than a band. Not to mention the band had a history of not getting along even through B.B.’s. They were known for their small staff and musician size and being last for three years in a row. They did better this year thanks to new guitar players and their lead singer stepping up, but they were a joke at best. The Committee was losing patience with them even because fox. was exactly what the E.X.Y. program was created for. 

Then Kevin Day joined. It was a miracle to the Foxes and a nightmare to Neil. Neil couldn’t accept the offer now. Neil couldn’t see Kevin now, not after eight years. Neil couldn’t do it, some things are left in the past. Some things stay because Neil’s life depended on it. 

“I can’t,” he said.

“Oh, but you can. Need a pen?” Wymack asked.

“No,” Neil began, “I can’t play for you.”

“Why?”

“Kevin.”

“Kevin can help si-”

Neil bolted before Wymack could finish. It didn’t matter what he was going to say. He didn’t look back even when he heard Hernandez make a confused sound. He didn’t care if they were following anyway. He needed to run. Run from here. Run from “Neil Josten”. Run before it was too late.

It was too late.

He got close to the curtains when he realized someone was waiting for him. This mystery someone was holding a plastic microphone stand ready to swing, but Neil was going to fast. Wham! The stand collided with his abdomen taking his breathe away and switch his organs with his spine. He fell to his hands and knees trying to breath, taking only gasps in. 

He realized the ringing in his ears was Wymack’s angry yelling, but sounded distant. “Minyard! This is why we can’t have nice things.”

“Oh gee,” Neil heard, “,but if he was nice we would need him and he wouldn’t be running.”

“He’s not needed for anyone if you kill him first.”

“Killing? No, no. Just stick a band-aid and he’ll be good as new.”

He started to take deeper breaths causing pain in his bruised lungs. He held his middle and looked up at his assaulter. 

He didn’t need to hear the name to know who it was though. Andrew Minyard. He was as blonde as he was short, standing at five foot even. He was another essential player from this year. The college freshman could slay on the bass, but also if you got too close. Most of the Foxes were self-destructive, but that was an understatement here. Andrew had been to juvie and just missed a second sentence. 

The Edgar Allen University’s Dirty Castle lead singer Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day were meant to recruit Andrew for the band, but he wouldn’t allow them. Andrew insisted on the forever-last-place fox. for whatever reason. He was the first to ever decline Edgar Allen for a position. He never explained himself, but no one really thought it was more than his twin, Aaron, and cousin, Nicholas Hemmick, being signed there for that year already. Whatever it was, it was his fault Kevin moved to Palmetto State. 

Kevin was the back-up to Riko until he got vocal nodules. The surgery didn’t go well, but didn’t go bad either, but it did cost him his contract with the band since they didn’t recruit people to do behind the scenes, just hired. So he moved to Palmetto and became the team manager and Wymack’s assistant instructor. Three weeks ago he was signed to sing next fall.

The only thing the Foxes could give Kevin was the guitarist. Neil spent more time than he’d like to admit, finding everything he could about Andrew Minyard. Seeing him in person, it was clear why Kevin wanted him, but it was still sickening none the less. 

Andrew smiled and winked down at Neil with piercing hazel eyes. “Next time then.”

“Fuck you,” Neil said. “Whose stand did you steal?”

“Borrow.” Andrew tossed it to the side where the equipment was. 

“Neil,” Hernandez said, helping him to his feet to face himself and Wymack. “God, are you okay?”

“Excuse Andrew, he has no manners,” Wymack said. “But I paid for three people to come out here to see you, the least you could do is let me talk, right?”

Neil was suddenly very pale and dizzy. He stumbled back into Hernandez. His duffel bag hit his leg and he gripped it for dear life. “He can’t be here.”

Wymack looked confused. “Should he not be?”

“I’m not good enough to share a stage with him,” Neil lied.

“True, but that won’t matter,” said a new, but all too familiar voice. 

He was breathless and he knew turning around would be a mistake, but his instincts took. 

He should have known, with Andrew here. There’s no reason a guitarist would need to meet him. But a jack-of-all-trade in music was here, Kevin Day. They never were anywhere without the other. 

Kevin was perched on the speakers next to the stage. The surrounding speakers were all covered in papers as well as his own. He’d watched the whole thing, completely unfazed.

Too many years had passed since Neil’s last encounter with Kevin Day. Too many years to count from when Kevin had watched Neil’s dad slaughter a man in front of them. Kevin was different from the way he looked now, but still all the same. The same dark hair and green eyes and roman number two tattooed on his left cheek-bone. The number made Neil nauseous. Kevin had always had that number and it would always haunt him. It was a mark that Riko Moriyama owned Kevin Day. If Neil’s mom hadn’t taken him when she did he’d have a mark too.

But he couldn’t think about that. He just couldn’t let Kevin know who he was. That would be a problem. He hugged his bag close to him, his only grip to this reality, or nightmare.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! It would mean a lot to leave kudos and a comment just so I know you did.  
> Also since I want to make this a One Shot Collection, any suggestions would be encouraged in the comments or at my tumblr at pastel-nonbinary.tumblr.com
> 
> Beta Readers: deathanddestuction (go check out her stuff too!!!!) and my good friend Mel! Love you both thanks!


End file.
